Of 10 largest metro areas in USA, only Chicago’s lost residents

The St. Louis region continues to see the same stagnant growth trend it’s experienced for years – with the 15-county metro area actually dropping slightly in population, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday. Since 2010, Jonesboro has seen a 7.1 percent increase in population.

Harris County’s loss of residents to other areas in 2016 – a loss of about 44 people a day – is likely evidence of the downturn in oil prices, but the differences in population growth between urban and suburban counties come with significant implications for the racial and socioeconomic composition of those areas, said state demographer Lloyd Potter. Austin skipped past two OH metros, Cleveland and Columbus, to claim the No. 31 spot.

One of those flourishing cities, Bentonville.

Kinghorn pointed to the Fort Wayne area, some north central counties and the counties across the Ohio River from Louisville. No other metro area topped 4 percent.

The Census Bureau, which takes a count of the US population and gathers other information every 10 years, also makes annual estimates of the populations of states, counties and cities in the U.S. West Virginia’s is number one, at 12.2 per 1,000.

Click on a county to see total population changes, as well as birth, death and migration rates over the past year (July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016).

For every person who moved into Porter County during the past six years, three left Lake County, according to the data.

Census numbers show more people are moving into the counties surrounding Baltimore, because the City’s chronic issues like underfunded schools, crime and crumbling infrastructure may deter new residents from coming in.

The Nashville metro area, which grew by 2 percent previous year to 1.87 million persons, made up 28 percent of the total state population and was the fastest growing metro area in Tennessee.

Still, in recent years areas of the county have been listed among the fasted growing places in the country.

Mecklenburg remains the largest county in the state, with an estimated 2016 population of more than 1.05 million.

The US Census Bureau releases annual estimates of the populations of each of America’s 3,142 counties and county equivalents. Population estimates for cities, villages and townships are expected to be released later in the year.

But research shows there’s been a “boomerang” effect with more people in their 30s moving back to rural counties, said Brian Depew, director of the Center for Rural Affairs. But they still posted respectable population gains, with Travis at 2.1 percent and Caldwell at 1.8 percent.

Washington County is projected to grow to almost 200,000 by 2020, according to population projections prepared for Gov. Gary Herbert’s office.